Prince Hamlet of Denmark is overcome with grief at the sudden death of his father, and is appalled when his mother quickly marries her brother-in-law Claudius. But worse is to come when the dead king's ghost appears and reveals a ghastly murder ...
William Shakespeare's Hamlet, written around 1600, is pretty untouchable as a property. I could say I think it's a bit long (especially Act IV), Ophelia has bugger all to do with the plot, and the ending is the old scribbler's trick of killing everybody off because you can't think of anything better, but there's not too much point because you probably either don't like Old Billy much or worse, are a Culture Snob who thinks he's a paragon. This movie version is very good all round really; the main difficulty in adapting Shakespeare to film is the stage direction, which is heavy on speeches and short on action. Gibson imbues it with energy and Zeffirelli wisely abridges it down to two hours, focussing on the passion and the agonising doubt at the core of the story. Fundamentally, the play is really about the essence of death; the horror of the King's murder, the damnation of Claudius, the tragedy of Ophelia, the bones of Yorick. His father's killing forces Hamlet to stare the horror of death straight in the face and he doesn't know how to live - to sleep, perchance to dream. Gibson is great in the lead, ably supported by Bates, Holm and Scofield (all of whom played Hamlet on stage to great acclaim) and he makes the tough-going dialogue surprisingly palatable and mellow. There's also a fine incidental score by Ennio Morricone and excellent production design by Dante Ferretti (most exteriors were shot at Dunnottar Castle on the east coast of Scotland), and it was the first film made by Gibson's respected Icon production company. I like this movie a lot, as I do any movie which tries to take the illustrious High Arts and turn them into something anyone can appreciate. I think it's the best movie adaptation of the classic tale - the 1948 Laurence Olivier and 1996 Kenneth Branagh versions are both a bit stodgy, but the cheapie 1969 one with Nicol Williamson is not bad. Weirdly, the best movie versions of Hamlet (as with most of Shakespeare's plays) are the ones that are cagily disguised as something else, such as Akira Kurosawa's corporate killer drama Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru / The Bad Sleep Well, Tom Stoppard's whimsical Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis' hilarious The Adventures Of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (which mostly involves beer and ice-hockey, two crucial elements Shakespeare left out), and Aki Kaurismäki's lovably nutty Hamlet Liikemaailmassa / Hamlet Goes Business, in which Hamlet is the heir to a rubber-duck manufacturing company. Also, this movie is perhaps the perfect example of an international movie with no homeland; it was funded by French money, distributed by Americans, stars an Australian, was made by an Italian, filmed in the UK and is set in Denmark ! Don't be put off by the intellectual pedigree; this is the world's oldest revenger's tragedy and a great thought-provoking film.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet, written around 1600, is pretty untouchable as a property. I could say I think it's a bit long (especially Act IV), Ophelia has bugger all to do with the plot, and the ending is the old scribbler's trick of killing everybody off because you can't think of anything better, but there's not too much point because you probably either don't like Old Billy much or worse, are a Culture Snob who thinks he's a paragon. This movie version is very good all round really; the main difficulty in adapting Shakespeare to film is the stage direction, which is heavy on speeches and short on action. Gibson imbues it with energy and Zeffirelli wisely abridges it down to two hours, focussing on the passion and the agonising doubt at the core of the story. Fundamentally, the play is really about the essence of death; the horror of the King's murder, the damnation of Claudius, the tragedy of Ophelia, the bones of Yorick. His father's killing forces Hamlet to stare the horror of death straight in the face and he doesn't know how to live - to sleep, perchance to dream. Gibson is great in the lead, ably supported by Bates, Holm and Scofield (all of whom played Hamlet on stage to great acclaim) and he makes the tough-going dialogue surprisingly palatable and mellow. There's also a fine incidental score by Ennio Morricone and excellent production design by Dante Ferretti (most exteriors were shot at Dunnottar Castle on the east coast of Scotland), and it was the first film made by Gibson's respected Icon production company. I like this movie a lot, as I do any movie which tries to take the illustrious High Arts and turn them into something anyone can appreciate. I think it's the best movie adaptation of the classic tale - the 1948 Laurence Olivier and 1996 Kenneth Branagh versions are both a bit stodgy, but the cheapie 1969 one with Nicol Williamson is not bad. Weirdly, the best movie versions of Hamlet (as with most of Shakespeare's plays) are the ones that are cagily disguised as something else, such as Akira Kurosawa's corporate killer drama Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru / The Bad Sleep Well, Tom Stoppard's whimsical Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis' hilarious The Adventures Of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (which mostly involves beer and ice-hockey, two crucial elements Shakespeare left out), and Aki Kaurismäki's lovably nutty Hamlet Liikemaailmassa / Hamlet Goes Business, in which Hamlet is the heir to a rubber-duck manufacturing company. Also, this movie is perhaps the perfect example of an international movie with no homeland; it was funded by French money, distributed by Americans, stars an Australian, was made by an Italian, filmed in the UK and is set in Denmark ! Don't be put off by the intellectual pedigree; this is the world's oldest revenger's tragedy and a great thought-provoking film.